Two-Moon Night
by ouxes
Summary: Faye ponders her conflict over Spike's survival; he recovers in hospital while she debates with herself over a confusing and complicated feeling she cannot explain.. Regardless, her thoughts spiral concerning him and when he returns to the Bebop there are two options she must confront: to confess, or to repress.
1. Chapter 1

The bar door swung open and a beam of white sunlight screamed across the grimy floor. It was the filthiest, lowest place in the universe, and the light only illuminated what everyone there was trying to hide; all backs were turned, no one spoke, no one moved except to raise a glass to cracked lips or hold up a hand for more booze. Only the barman was active, silhouetted against the static red light behind the bench, wiping a glass seemingly for something to do.

With a heavy sigh weighted by the load of a full mind, Faye allowed the door to close behind her and trudged down to sit on a stool at the end of the bar, ignoring the bloodshot eyes that followed her.

'Back again, Ms Valentine?' said the barman wryly.

'Whiskey on the rocks,' she replied dully, keeping her eyes averted from the room.

'The usual...' muttered the barman, but he turned his back on her before she could retort.

Faye sighed again, resting her chin on her arm. Here she was again, doing just the opposite of what she vowed not to do. How pathetic... but she was too tired to care. Her mind was so full of conflict and confusion and doubt that it was although she had gone into survival mode and become completely numb; she couldn't even begin to analyse her thoughts for her brain would not allow the stress of it.

'One whiskey for the lady.'

The barman clunked the glass down upon the benchtop and lingered for a moment, leaning against the front.

'What's on your mind, girly? You've been comin' 'round here pretty often, is there somethin' you need help with?'

_No, I'm only here because I really enjoy the atmosphere and small talk_.

'Everything's fine, thanks.'

The irate edge to her voice told the barman to shrug and get back to wiping glasses. Faye pressed her fingers into her temples, inhaling through her nose, before taking downing the whiskey and gesturing for another.

_Spike awake, lying there in hospital, functional, blinking, breathing, thinking, feeling, his skin warm, his fingers moving. _The shock of seeing him look back at her was still bracing. It was as though the image had been burned onto her retinas so that no amount of blinking could rid her of him. And then that feeling of overwhelming relief tainted by fear, fear at how relieved she actually was that he was alive. She shouldn't feel so strongly about anything to do with Spike, he was just a friend – no, a colleague. But if he was only that then why had she confronted him before he left? Why had she collapsed when she heard what had happened? Why had she spent all these nights sleepless and all the days in bed?

Regardless, she didn't dare visit him again. She didn't think she could bear the intensity of his living gaze again.

And then there was the irrational anger towards him; the stupid, rash man that had deserted her to meet his death, or what _should_ have been his death. Obviously she meant nothing to him or he wouldn't have gone, or he would have at least said something before he left. And she had confessed her need for him… How stupid! This is why trusting men was always a bad idea. This is why needing people was always a bad idea.

Faye knew that she should leave, and leave now, but something held her to the bar stool and kept the glass in her hand no matter how much she despised her predicament.

Glaring sunlight pierced the bar momentarily as the door was opened and closed again, and Faye didn't need to look up to know who sat in the stool beside her.

'Scotch,' said Jet's deep rumble. 'Straight.'

The pair of them drank in silence for a time. Only when he ordered another glass did Jet speak again.

'Ed's back. She was looking for you, thought you'd taken off.'

'I'm not like her,' Faye replied wearily. 'I wouldn't take off.'

'I know, that's why I'm here.'

'Why are you here?' asked Faye, looked over at him.

Jet's expression revealed nothing as he prolonged her expectation with a thoughtful sip of his drink.

'I turned in a bounty last night. I just thought I'd let you know that I'm cooking.'

Faye narrowed her eyes. He wouldn't come all this way to tell her he was _cooking_.

'And?' she challenged.

Jet downed the rest of his glass and took out a cigarette. Faye did not relinquish her suspicious stare from him as he slowly extracted a lighter from his pocket, sparked the flame, inhaled and flicked the lighter closed.

'And Spike was asking about you,' he said through a cloud of smoke.

_Oh God_. Faye faltered, dropping her gaze an inch. Her heart beat picked up double time and she looked down at her fingers. Her thoughts spiralled, became erratic and impossible to distinguish one feeling from another. He was asking, that must mean he cares… Though he probably asked about Ed and Ein as well.

'What was he asking about?' she said, trying to keep her tone light and dismissive.

'Just how you were,' shrugged Jet. 'If you were doing okay.'

'Why wouldn't I be doing okay?'

Shit, answered too fast.

Jet shrugged again, but she knew it was only to appease her. The inquiries sat between them like an elephant in a tutu but neither would address them, neither would acknowledge that they were there. Both merely sipped on their drinks, upholding a mutual silence.

'He wanted to know if you were still around, that's all,' Jet said finally. 'He said you hadn't been in to see him since the first time.'

'I haven't,' said Faye, slightly shocked.

'Why not? Actually, don't worry about it.'

Jet finished his drink with satisfaction and stood up to go.

'Dinner's at seven,' he told her over his shoulder. 'Don't be late or Ein will get your share.'

Faye waved her hand to show she had heard and Jet left the bar into a blaze of sunlight.  
So Spike had been asking about her. It made her slightly nervous knowing that he inquired about her wellbeing; perhaps he knew she would be suffering over him. Perhaps she was just over-thinking everything…

After another hour of drinks and deliberation, Faye resolved to return to the _Bebop_ with mild hunger as an excuse. She refused to acknowledge any more honest reasoning behind the decision as she paid the barman and sauntered out into the deep orange light of a setting sun.

She hugged her waist as she walked along the riverside, ignoring pedestrians that passed like drones, or like shadows behind glass. The beams of golden sunlight stretched their fingers across the sky and Faye began to walk with her head a little higher. Only now that she was moving did she realise how hungry she actually was, and she began to look forward to Jet's dinner; and Ed and Ein would be there… She hadn't seen them in so long. Of course, Spike's memory would be lingering in the walls of the ship, haunting her and dogging her steps, but she was drunk so she didn't care so much for the man. Who was he but just a work partner? A comrade, even? He was no more than Jet, or Ed; just carrying out their obligatory duty to one another in raking in enough cash to keep the ship and their bodies going. She couldn't be stagnant in misery forever, she had to _do_ something; get back on board, so to speak.

As she saw the _Bebop_ stationed by the dock, all its wear and imperfections emblazoned across its side by the sun, she couldn't help the smile that turned up her lips. _Home_. There was no other word for it. That gritting familiarity, the memories nailed deeper into the metal hull than the very nails themselves, all spoke of solidarity to her. Spike or no Spike, the ache in her heart was closer to happiness than regret.


	2. Chapter 2

'FAYE-FAYE!'

The living area flashed momentarily into a splay of red hair as Ed threw herself into Faye's arms. Ein barked somewhere around her ankles and Faye laughed awkwardly, stepping back once Ed had released her.

'Good to see you again, Ed,' she smiled, patting the girl on the top of her head.

'Faye-Faye! Faye-Faye!' Ed chorused, the innocent joy on her face impossible to deplore.

Ed flapped around the room twice before plopping down on the floor in front of her computer, tapping merrily at the keys and gigging sporadically.

Just like always; it was as though she had never left.

Jet's aproned figure leaned out of the kitchen doorway, his inquiring expression shifting to one more welcoming.

'Good,' he grunted. 'I made too much, now there's another mouth to limit the leftovers.'

'I thought you were expecting me,' asked Faye shrewdly, making her way down the steel steps.

'Yeah, well, I couldn't be sure…'

He disappeared back into the kitchen, flinging a checked tea-towel over his shoulder as he went. Faye shook her head disparagingly and decided to go to the bathroom to freshen up.

Her feet followed the familiar route down the corridor towards the lavatory door. She stretched her arms up high as she walked, pushing her hands towards the ceiling and revelling momentarily in the extension of her spine – then stopped in her tracks.

The shower was on. She could hear the running water ricocheting off the porcelain and the person as they moved under its pressure, alternating hard and soft, loud and quiet. Somehow, immediately Faye knew it was Spike in there, naked, dripping, a few feet away. Possibilities of perhaps a woman of Jet's, a friend of Ed's floated through her mind and dissolved into overpowering certainty that he was back. It all made perfect sense… Jet had come to bring her back because he _knew_ they had unfinished business, loose ends, that needed righting. _Oh shit_.

Faye backed away from the door until her back was pressed against the cool steel wall of the corridor. Then, suddenly fuming, she turned her back on the door, marched down the hall and threw open the kitchen door.

'Jet!' she barked.

Jet looked up lightly from the saucepan he was stirring, appearing totally unfazed.

'What?'

'What is _he_ doing here?' she asked menacingly.

'Who?'

'Don't play stupid with me!'

'Oh, right, him,' nodded Jet, turning back to the saucepan. 'He got out of hospital earlier, didn't I tell you that's why I was cooking?'

'Must have slipped your mind,' Faye hissed tartly.

'Hm. Well, all he did on the way home was complain about hospital food so,' he shrugged, 'somehow he persuaded me into this.'

When Faye didn't respond, he looked over with an eyebrow raised.

'Why're you so worked up about it, eh?' he asked shrewdly.

'I'm not.'

He raised his other eyebrow and Faye grimaced, turning and slamming the kitchen door behind her.

She paced up and down the living area, her mind buzzing with apprehension and fury, until she resolved to flopping down dejectedly on the yellow couch.

So this was it, the inevitable come at last; the confrontation she had been churning over in her mind all these weeks that she had simultaneously resolved _not_ to have was happening, or would be in ten minutes. _Thank you, Jet, really_. Faye curled her arm over her closed eyes and breathed through her nose, attempting to calm her nerves. A wild desire to run away gripped her momentarily, but she quashed any thought of leaving. She was not going to avoid this.

The very air itself felt electric with some pulsing energy that flowed only when he was around. Had he asked Jet to bring her back, or had Jet taken the initiative himself? Surely Jet wouldn't care enough to get involved… or maybe he was tired of the tension between his two colleagues. Yes, that made sense. After all, Jet _had_ somewhat taken over the priority of bounty hunting since Spike had been incapacitated and Faye had been, well, wallowing in self-pity for the most part; perhaps he had acted to resolve the unspoken conflict between the two to return the workload into one mutually shared. But then again, Jet was perfectly capable of working on his own – he had been with Spike for three years before she met them, why would he desire her contribution now?

Maybe Spike had asked her to come back… But why? Did he have questions that needed answering? Desires to be fulfilled? Was he showering for a specific purpose?

_Now you're getting carried away_.

Faye rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms, attempting to wipe the image of Spike in the shower from her mind.

'Well, whaddya know?'

Faye froze where she lay, her breath caught in her throat, and lowered her hands to her side. When she looked over to the doorway, she didn't need to imagine Spike's naked figure for he was standing there in the flesh before her. Well, he wasn't completely naked, but the towel knotted around his hips did little to quell her sudden increased heartbeat. Water droplets clung to his skin, to his sculpted chest that was pricked by goosebumps, and swilled, still steaming, in the dips of his collarbone. The confrontation of Spike standing only a few feet away, his bare torso and muscular arms too alive to be real, rendered Faye momentarily speechless.

His painfully familiar crooked smile tortured her eyes as he padded down the steps to sit across from her on the other couch, rubbing a towel into his dripping hair as he did so.

'Long time no see, eh?' he smirked, shaking his fringe and sending water flying over onto Faye's arms.

'Hey, watch it!' she said, sitting up quickly to lean away.

Spike sat back with a lazy kind of elegance and crossed his ankles, taking a cigarette from a deck on the arm rest.

'D'you have a lighter?' he asked absently, and she tossed him one, eyeing him warily.

His chest expanded as he inhaled and only then did Faye allow her gaze to properly see and process the image before her. A long, thick, purple scar ran across Spike's torso from his shoulder to his hip bone; tiny pairs of pink dots told of multiple stitches and staples, and the shadow of yellow bruising whispered the remnants of internal bleeding. But his body was warm and soft, accentuated by the recent shower, and she felt a sudden rush of pleasure to see him despite all her internal battles of the previous days.

'You're looking better than I expected,' she said conversationally, lighting a cigarette for herself as the smell of Jet's cooking slowly permeated the living space.

'What _were_ you expecting?'

'A corpse,' she shrugged, 'or maybe a vegetable.'

He grinned and exhaled.

'Maybe if you'd have come to see me in hospital, you would've realised otherwise.'

Faye opened her mouth to respond, but paused and closed it again. Spike's tone and expression revealed nothing but she couldn't help the feeling of shame colour her cheeks. Spike was right; how childish had she been, avoiding him because of her own delusions.

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for a response, but she was saved by Jet who ducked his head around the doorway.

'Faye, come help me with the plates – hey, Spike, are you planning on eating in a towel?'

'Give me a second.'

'Ed will help!' sang Ed, leaping to her feet and pushing her goggles up onto her head.

She clambered over the couch to slide the magazines and papers to the side of the table, ducking around Spike's stagnant figure to make space for the oncoming crockery.

Spike's subtle gaze followed Faye's back as she walked across the floor to the kitchen, his head tilted slightly to one side. There was a feeling, a lingering suspicion in the back of his mind, that something in her eyes had changed; something had shifted in the back of those pupils that was trying to tell send him a message.

Her aloof stride was at odds with her air of hesitancy and, as Spike got up to dress, he returned to pondering why she hadn't come to visit him in the hospital after that one day she _had_ come. On that single occasion she had spoken so quietly and moved so anxiously that she could have been a stranger. _But no_, he told himself, as he pushed open the door to his sleeping quarters. _If there is one thing I have learned, it is that the past stays just where it belongs. No more wondering what could have been. _

They were new people now, open to new beginnings and fresh possibilities. Well, if there was one thing Spike knew, it was that he was raring to get out and resume his life after that brief spell of crippling inertia. The energy tingled in the tips of his fingers as he left his quarters, swaggering on the promise of a hot meal, an exchange of news, and the company of old comrades.


	3. Chapter 3

'So, who's on the hot list?' asked Spike, as he picked up his chopsticks. 'Jet? Anyone up on _Big Shot_?'

'Well, a few no-namers to say the least,' replied Jet, but he paused, lowering his chopsticks slightly as though steeling himself. 'But there are some on the down low you might be interested in.'

'Oh yeah?'

'Red Dragon's not over –'

'_What__?!_' said Spike loudly. 'But Vicious and The Van are dead!' Then his face darkened. 'Let me guess, small fry trying to keep it going?'

'Mm,' nodded Jet gravely.

'They just never quit, do they…'

Spike shook his head exasperatedly as he ate, and after his first mouthful of the sautéed beef his expression lifted somewhat and he began to wolf down his plate.

'What kind of "small fry" are we talking here?' asked Faye. 'I thought Spike got all of the important ones, or did you miss a few along the way?' she teased, and Spike, his mouth full, could only narrow his eyes at her.

'Well, word from Bob is that a new base has been attempted by a bunch of young gangsters wanting big money,' shrugged Jet. 'Probably trafficking drugs, or making the shit.'

'Where?' demanded Spike, after a tremendous swallow. 'I'll get the lot of those goddamn kids, I thought this was over with.'

'Someone's eager,' muttered Faye, flicking a slice of beef into her mouth.

'Hey, you would be too if you'd been strapped to a gurney for two weeks,' said Spike defensively, pointing his chopsticks at her. 'Where are they based?'

'Bob wasn't sure, or he didn't particularly want to tell me –'

'Why not?' said Faye.

'A cop wouldn't want a whole bunch of bounty hunters knowing about this,' said Spike, before Jet could answer. 'That'd only make the syndicate grow again if word got out.'

'He was complaining about an increase in small-time drug pushers on Callisto which is a pretty good indicator,' mused Jet, picking through his rice for any hidden pieces of beef. 'They've gotta get their drugs from somewhere.'

'Red-Eye?'

'Mhm.'

'Callisto it is, then,' said Spike with satisfaction, rubbing his hands together before attacking his dish again.

Faye got to her feet and stacked Jet, Ed's and her own empty plates to take into the kitchen for cleaning, scraping Ed's leftovers into Ein's bowl as she went. Ed flopped back onto the couch, rubbing her full tummy with satisfaction. Ein lifted his head from Jet's knee and scrabbled frantically across the floor to his bowl.

When Faye got into the little kitchen, she dropped the plates into the sink and leaned against the bench, running her fingers through her hair. She was immensely glad to have a job to do, to have some occupation to take her mind off Spike. Normality was resuming again – this was good – and they would be behaving as work partners again – which was also good. But if they were working together on the same bountyhead, which they were, that meant they would have to be in close proximity to one another. She couldn't deny it: this fact was also very, very good.

She turned on the tap and squeezed detergent into the jet, watching the soap suds blossom just like her thoughts. She allowed her mind to wander back to that sight of Spike, so warm and wet, his very skin steaming and basically begging to be touched… Imagine if he had have stared at her with a blazing yet tender look in his eyes, strode forward with all the purpose of a man intent on fulfilling a passion he was unable to endure, taken her into his arms and –

'Hey, Jet says there's leftovers,' said Spike, inclining his head around the doorway and holding out his plate.

Faye swung around in shock as though hiding something tangible, but she quickly righted herself and remembered that her thoughts were only just that – thoughts.

'There's some on the bench,' she said somewhat glumly, indicating a tin behind her.

Spike slouched into the tiny kitchen and stepped behind her, his arm incidentally brushing her backside as he went to dig some more rice onto his plate, totally unaware of Faye's suddenly erratic heartbeat and hyper-intense awareness of how close their bodies were.

'So,' said Spike, and something in his voice made her look around to see him leaning casually against the bench beside her. A smirk lingered on his lips as he picked this time less intently at his food. 'Jet said you'd disappeared off the face of Mars for a week. He thought you'd gone back to Earth and gotten a day job.'

'A day job?' she repeated with disdain, focussing back upon the dishes. 'Does that sound likely to you?'

'No, that's why I'm asking.'

'What do you care what I did while you were in hospital?'

'If you hadn't given us the slip completely, why did you never visit me?' he said, sounding a little less teasing now and more genuinely curious. The sincerity in his tone unnerved her as Faye became aware that anything she said would be taken seriously, not jokingly, from hereon in.

'Did Ed ever come visit you?' she asked shrewdly, more to avoid the question than out of real interest.

'Well, no,' he admitted, 'but she and I aren't so close, if I recall correctly what you said to me before I went to see Vicious.'

_Shit, he remembers! _Faye had hoped and hoped that Spike would ignore their parting words, how she had begged him not to leave because she needed him to be alive and in her life to feel complete. _Shit shit shit!_

'I'm surprised you remember,' she replied, with a shaky laugh. 'After everything that happened that night, that conversation seems pretty insignificant.'

'Yeah, well I thought about it a lot in hospital,' said Spike pensively. 'There wasn't much to do, mind you, but regardless. That's why I'm confused.'

He shrugged and she heard the sound of his chopsticks scraping the bottom of the tin plate.

'Confused about what?' she ventured, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.

'If you didn't want me to leave so badly, why didn't you want to come back once you found out I was alive?'

Faye dropped the steel wool into the sink and stood up straight to face him. He was looking over at her with an inquisitive eye, but there was a hint of softness in it as though he had some terrifyingly accurate suspicion. The desire to tell the truth gripped her where she stood and yet her mouth refused to spill out the confession.

'Why do you think I'm here?' she said quietly, refusing any pain to show. 'What I said before hasn't changed.' She hesitated, then, looking straight up into his eyes as though staring into the sun, she said, 'I'm glad you're here. That's all.'

'You're glad I'm alive,' he repeated, with a disbelieving laugh. 'Well, I guess that's something…'

'You were expecting something different?' she challenged stubbornly.

'I wasn't expecting anything,' he said simply, scooping the last bit of rice into his mouth. 'Maybe a bit more honesty. That's all.'

He grinned widely, showing bits of rice stuck between his teeth as he put his plate down beside the sink, and sauntered off with his hands in his pockets.


	4. Chapter 4

'The last time Red Dragon had anything on Callisto it was a Red-Eye exchange with Vicious and those local gangsters by the docks in Shuto City, where Lin shot me with that tranquilliser in the back alley.'

Spike was pacing up and down the living space, his brow furrowed. Jet sat updating the telecommunication device from his _Hammerhead_ on the steps, his posture evidently irate as Spike had insisted he remain in the living space for the discussion rather than retreat to his workshop. Miniscule screws and cogs lay scattered in haphazard order on the floor around him and every now and then he would grunt or sigh exasperatedly as he persisted in his work despite the inconvenient environment. Ed sat cross-legged on the floor next to him, careful not to disturb him yet watching his progress with a curious fixation. Every now and then, Jet would hold out a screwdriver for her to mind when he needed both hands to keep a nut in place, and she would hand it back when he wordlessly asked, always pleased to help. Faye lounged contentedly on the sofa on her front, apathetically perusing a magazine whilst painting her fingernails a violent purple. Spike smoked while he paced, the other hand buried characteristically in his pocket.

'So we should go there for starters,' finished Spike with conviction.

'I liked it better when you were lazy,' grumbled Jet.

'No, it's good this way,' said Faye absently. 'Less for me to do. But I have to ask, why are we going after these Red Dragon nobodies if there's no bounty?'

'It's the principle,' said Spike firmly. 'Red Dragon should have been finished when Vicious and the Van were killed.'

'Oh, so it's a _pride_ thing…'

'You don't have to help if you don't want to.'

'Oh I know, I wasn't planning on it.' She blew dismissively on her wet fingernails, rounding the edges with her thumb before holding them back to deliberate the extent of their symmetry.

'I can't do this,' said Jet exasperatedly, and he got to his feet to gather up the parts of his telecommunicator. 'I'm going to the workshop, you two figure it out.'

'Can Ed help? Please, please, please?' Ed asked eagerly, looking up in admiration at Jet's hulking figure.

Jet's brow furrowed, sizing her up, before he nodded resolutely and headed down the corridor with the girl at his heels.

Faye ignored the tension that sparked up in the room as soon as Jet and Ed were out of sight, continuing to focus on her fingernails for some occupation. From the corner of her eye she could see that Spike had stopped pacing and sat down facing her but she refused the desire to look up.

'Come with me,' he said suddenly, without a hint of hesitation. 'Jet's busy with his own shit and I'll need backup.'

Faye raised her eyebrows, crossing her ankles in the air behind her.

'What will I get out of it?' she inquired lightly, denying the immediate "yes" that sprang to her lips.

'The pleasure of my company?' he said, half-hopefully half-sarcastically. 'C'mon, this is important to me.'

'Well, money is important to me,' Faye replied, biting her lip and carefully touching up the edge of her pinky nail.

'Alright, alright, I'll go on my own,' said Spike, admitting defeat.

He got to his feet and leaned forward to butt his cigarette in the ash tray on the table. Almost as though it was an instinctual reaction, Faye looked up to see him peering lusciously at her through his fringe.

'I'll call if I need you,' he smirked, then straightened up and left the living room.

As soon as he was gone, Faye rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, feeling completely breathless. This was it, this was her chance. He would get to Shuto City docks and call her and she would go and they would find the remnants of Red Dragon together and once they succeeded, Spike, flushed with satisfaction at his personal success, would take her in his euphoria. She didn't allow herself reservations or "what ifs" or "buts".

She folded her arms onto her side and sat up dazedly, her heart pounding in her chest at odds with her suddenly static thoughts. It was as though now she had resolved herself onto the one option she knew she would settle on from the beginning, there was no backing out; there were no doubts now that she had committed herself.

Faye got to her feet and stepped slowly across the floor, bare-footed, to the little round window by the corridor door.

The red surface of Mars, dappled by artificial rivers and lakes, was rounded miles beneath the _Bebop_. All of those people busied by their own lives and personal concerns were insignificant next to Spike. Why him? She had no idea. She had spent so long denying herself the one dominant desire of her heart but now that she had resolved to fulfil it, a strange kind of peace had filled her being. The stratosphere had never looked so beautiful.

'Hey.'

Faye looked over to her right to see Spike standing only a few feet away by the entrance to the corridor. She had been so absorbed by her own musings that she hadn't realised his approach, and she was startled to see him there so close. He was about to speak but then a strange look crossed his face and the words seemed to catch in his mouth; he paused, his lips silently parted. His expression suddenly shifted from casual inquiry to a mixture of surprise and confusion. A silent spark of tension was exchanged between them, intensified as Spike noticed the two moons, Deimos and Phobos, simultaneously reflected in her eyes. He frowned slightly in response to this unexpected emotion.

'What?' she asked.

'Do you know where Jet put my Jericho?'

She shook her head and he quickly strode away, across the room and down the corridor opposite. Faye watched him go, completely bewildered.

'What was that all about?' she muttered to herself.

Her extremities seemed electric with anticipation as she fell onto her bed, watching the memory of Spike's face, that look in his eyes that seemed to mirror hers, shimmer across the vision of her mind's eye. _Look at how involved you are, Faye_, she told herself furiously. _Look at how much you need him! This can only turn out badly_…

But she shoved these thoughts aside to regret later once she returned to that dingy bar on Mars, which she inevitably would after she got rejected, and dressed slowly in those token yellow hot pants and shirt to await the call she knew Spike would make in a couple of hours.


	5. Chapter 5

It only took an hour and a half. Leaning against the wall of her sleeping quarters, Faye watched her mobile phone light up and vibrate, inching across the floor with every ring. She flashed it to her ear.

'Need me already?' she inquired dryly, the taunt in her voice hiding the real anticipation behind her words.

'I found them,' came Spike's static voice. 'Same place they were last time, the idiots.'

Faye smirked.

'Docks of Shuto City…' she mused, trying to recall in her memory when she had been there last. 'Give me fifteen.'

The phone snapped shut with a ring of finality and Faye got to her feet, feeling her heart rate increase with every step.

'You leaving already?' Jet asked from the cockpit.

He had flown them to hover above the atmosphere of Callisto – just out of reach of possible domestic enemy fire, the way Jet preferred his precious ship to be.

'Yep,' she said smartly, climbing the steps. 'Swing us around facing due south, I want a direct take-off.'

Faye strapped herself into the _Red Tail_; her most faithful companion, the Glock 30, was ready by the side of the seat. She pushed the accelerator lever down hard, feeling the thrill of the whole ship rev louder and louder until it seemed close to breaking point, before she released the brake and shot out of the hold into open space.

The _Red Tail_ zoomed through the atmosphere into Callisto airspace, flying closer and closer, lower and lower to the sprawled lights of the capital. Her eyes scanned the web of orange streets for the edge of black water – there, pin-pricked with the glow of ships, was the bay.

'Easy enough,' she muttered, slowing the jet and spiralling down to land smoothly on the surface of the water by the dimly lit boardwalk.

Little waves slapped the side of the bay wall as the ship door opened upwards and Faye stepped out, leaping down onto dry land, her heels clicking on the concrete. She paused, listening for any sound of movement or gunfire that would divulge Spike's location, but it was unnecessary as she heard footsteps approaching from the shadows.

She pointed her gun at the source of the noise but Spike's voice issued from under the eaves of the warehouse backdrop.

'Don't point that at me, come on,' he said hurriedly, and Faye strode after him along the boardwalk.

'Well, this is romantic, an evening bayside stroll,' she murmured.

'I just want this to be over with,' muttered Spike darkly. 'They're not making Red-Eye, just pushing locally.'

'Still in the same warehouse?'

'Mhm.'

'Idiots…'

'They know I'm here,' Spike admitted. 'I went in and downed maybe four, but I needed backup.'

'So what's the plan, storm in again and just shoot them all down?'

'Basically,' shrugged Spike. 'But they're in the alley – or will be in a couple of minutes.'

'A back-alley shoot-out,' nodded Faye appreciatively. 'Just like the old days.'

'Here.'

They turned down a side street, walking in time with one another, quietly down the deserted road; then left behind the warehouses, apartment complexes looming behind them.

Spike held out his arm to stop Faye walking, and she couldn't help but blush at his touch on her waist. _Come on, Faye, focus, don't be distracted_.

There was a narrow laneway that ran between two warehouses. It was completely empty save for a dumpster and a skinny grey cat that slinked around a concealed doorway and out of sight.

'The entrance to the warehouse is on the other side,' Spike said lowly.

'How many?' Faye loaded her Glock.

'Three at front, more inside. Stay here.'

Spike strode forward with such purpose, so much determination and control that Faye felt almost dazed with awe and also some hint of resentment. _Why can't he have that air in relation to me?_ she thought sulkily; but she cocked her weapon all the same and stepped back into the shadow of the warehouse wall. Time to take out some of her frustration on a bunch of petty men. What fun.

Spike's tall figure dissolved into shadow as he mirrored her move at the other end of the laneway, but she saw his form flick around the corner and heard the resounding gunfire. Shots rang out through the alley and she ran forward as Spike retreated around the corner again. She was close enough now to see his brow furrowed with fortitude, his gun raised at his chest, but then two backup men appeared at the other end of the lane and she spun around to shoot at them. They both fell, one after the other, and she dived behind the dumpster as the sound of more gunfire came from the front of the lane.

From around the bin she could see Spike on the other side, hidden in the concealed doorway. He had his back to the wall, his Jericho at the ready.

The scuffing of footsteps told them that at least three men were still at the mouth of the laneway. Faye ducked around the dumpster at shot at them, but was forced back to no avail.

'Have the fucking drugs, man! We don't even want 'em!' croaked a voice from the alley.

'_Shut up!_' snarled another. 'Yes we want the fucking drugs, let's just kill these dogs and be done with it.'

From the corner of her eye she saw Spike beckon. She nodded minutely and sprang to her feet, poised to sprint, and she fired her gun repeatedly as she stepped out into the middle of the laneway.

_BANG!_ Faye clenched her eyes shut as she felt the Glock whipped from her hands, leaving her empty grip stinging beside her. _Shit, weaponless_. She spun around frantically, narrowing her eyes at a stocky man who lunged forward and grabbed her wrist. In one succinct movement, Faye kicked up hard, swung her foot around until it collided with the side of the man's face, and he was floored with a grunt before he could even blink.

More bullets screamed close to her and she darted aside just in time to see an approaching dark-skinned man fall back into a heap, blood blossoming over his chest. Her eyes flicked over Spike's half-hidden figure, flat against the wall opposite, his smoking gun still pointed at the dead man.

Then, a cold, hard metal pressed into the base of her skull which told her not to move. She froze, goosebumps blooming up her back.

'Move an inch and I'll paint the concrete with your brains,' growled a menacing voice in her ear – the second man who had spoken before.

'Okay,' she hissed coldly, raising her hands in defence. 'You got me.'

'Come out of hiding or the girl gets it!' the man shouted to the empty alleyway. 'I know you're there. Backup's on the way so it's die now or later, buddy; let's get this over with quickly.'

Spike's cloaked figure slipped out of the doorway and into the alley, his gun pointed directly at the pair of them. His face was hidden by darkness but the weapon glinted in the lamplight overhead, and Faye's whole being was filled with certainty that there was no danger to fear. This small time mobster wouldn't kill her, Spike wouldn't allow it.

'Let her go, Kilian,' Spike commanded lowly, his stance carved into one of dominating power.

'Likely!' spat the man, and Faye cringed in disgust at the saliva that sprayed onto the side of her neck. 'She's dead if you don't lower your weapon.'

Then, Spike's stance seemed to waver. He appeared to lose face and his hold on the gun shook a little. The point dropped an inch and, simultaneously, the man, Kilian's, grip loosened. The side of Faye's mouth turned up. She understood.

Several things happened at once: Faye dived down towards the ground, ducking her head in a rapid motion, as Spike fired his gun three times. Kilian's hold slackened and disappeared as he fell back onto the concrete. The gunshots rang through the alley for a moment before dissolving into silence.

'Yeuch,' grimaced Faye, wiping the side of her neck clean.

'Here.' Spike picked up her gun from where it had landed next to the dumpster, strode over and handed it to her.

'Thanks, you know I –'

Faye cut her sentence short as the sound of a speeding car approached their ears from a distance away. It was getting louder.

'What was Kilian saying about backup?' said Spike pointedly, standing up straight and narrowing his eyes, listening hard.

The car was coming down the road alongside the docks. Spike took Faye by the forearm and led her around into the doorway he had been concealed behind before. Her back was pushed against the cool concrete wall by his hands that were pressed on the wall either side of her neck. Her heart-rate increased at their sudden impossible closeness and, nervously, she chanced a peek up at his face. Spike's lips were only a foot away, parted slightly as he breathed, and his eyes were hardened with concentration as he listened to the car growing louder and louder. His figure was one of full protection over her; he bent close to her, hiding her, yet he held his gun tightly and was completely ready should the car come speeding around the corner. She could smell the familiar scent of stale tobacco and whiskey emanating from the collar of his coat and she longed to indulge herself in it further. It was difficult to focus on the oncoming danger when her imagination was overpowering her consciousness. Spike's complete control of the situation, his faith in his abilities were so attractive to her that she physically wasn't able to feel threatened by the approaching thugs. In fact, she resented their approach for when they arrived, the pair of them would have to leave this shadowy, close-built doorway…

'These will be the last ones,' Spike murmured under his breath. 'We get these and we leave. I fire, you stay here until the others realise I'm on the offensive.'

'I know,' Faye hissed indignantly. 'You should know by now that I'm not a novice –'

Car tires screeched at the mouth of the alley and the engine cut. Doors clicked and slammed, agitated voices.

'They fuckin' killed him!'

'Shit, look at his head. Feral's there too, look.'

'They can't've gone far –'

'Where're the others? They should've come by now.'

'Maybe they got them, too…'

'We shouldn't've come. You idiot, we should've stayed back at the station!'

Three men, debating like monkeys with one another. Spike smirked and shifted his weight, ready to lean around the corner and shoot. But a second before he did, he looked down at Faye, looked right into her eyes with a silent promise of safety and then she did it. She didn't know why she did it because she didn't even think about it; it was as though it was a reaction, like pain to a burn or squinting to a bright light. But Faye closed her eyes and kissed him, pressed her lips against his inhumanly warm, supple ones and the present dissolved for a fraction of a second – or was it five minutes, or all of eternity?

But then he was gone. Gunshots rang through the alley once more and silence followed and still Faye hadn't moved. Her mind felt completely numb; what the hell had just happened?

But Spike was back in less than an instant, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her into him and kissing her full on the mouth with all the burning passion of a man who has been waiting for too long. She kissed him back, locking her arms around his neck, and, together, they floated. All presumptions and even all of the past dissolved into pointless memory in that moment. Everything that was of any importance became now; it blossomed around them, the beauty of this instant of quiet confession, and the pair of them gave in to what had been confusion and repression only an hour ago.

When they parted, after what felt like a forever that passed too quickly, Spike's lips lingered an inch from hers and he spoke softly.

'Want to fly back with me?'

'No,' Faye replied. 'I want to stay here with you.'

He smirked slightly, with that perfect crooked smile that was so shatteringly familiar and now belonged to her.

'What are you implying?' he inquired.

'Give Jet a call, tell him we're occupied. I'll find a hotel.'

Spike smirked wider before ducking his head and kissing her just below her ear, and when he spoke his lips moved softly against her skin.

'Yes, ma'am.'


	6. Chapter 6

Okay so I had to do another chapter D: - I hope it's alright...

* * *

It was raining outside and the window was open, allowing a cool breeze to flutter the curtains and relieve the room of some of its humidity. There were no lights on inside but the glow of a streetlamp outside washed the wallpaper orange, its dim light accentuating the ripples in the quilt, the folds of the sheet, and the contours of Faye's naked body where she lay atop the covers.

Her head rested on Spike's bare chest, facing upwards, and a stream of bluish smoke coiled freely from the cigarette between her fingers. The heady aftermath of their evening was spent and had dissolved into a lazy, quiet contentment.

Spike, too, held a cigarette in his hand that drooped unsupported over the side of the bed. With the other hand he slowly twirled a lock of Faye's hair, softly weaving out the knots he had caused fifteen minutes ago.

The floor was a mess of clothing, shoes and discarded pillows. The bed was a compilation of untidiness in all its forms but the two people, the man and the woman who occupied this space of somnambulate chaos, were totally unfazed by anything other than the euphoric sense of honesty that had given life to a new aspect of their relationship.

_Just friends, huh. Work comrades, right? Who was I kidding_, Faye thought half-heartedly. She had admitted to herself what she had admitted to Spike with her body: she liked him, a lot. _There's no point thinking about it now, it's already done._ She sighed internally. _I shouldn't think about it anyway, least of all now. I'm so goddamn happy here_.

She brought the cigarette to her lips and dragged deeply, revelling in the momentary heat of the smoke in her lungs before exhaling. There's nothing better than a cigarette after sex.

'We should go out,' said Spike, speaking for the first time in seemingly forever. 'Let me take you out, to dinner or something.'

'Like a date?' asked Faye, surprise colouring her tone. 'Is that what this is?'

'I don't know, is it?'

'I –' She hesitated, not entirely sure of the answer. She hadn't thought about what she actually wanted from Spike. More than sex, but not commitment. Companionship? Affection? Attention?

'I have no idea,' she said honestly. 'But seeing as I helped you for free, you can pay for a meal.'

He grinned slightly and pushed back his fringe.

'Deal.'

She looked over to smile at him and his eyes seemed to smoulder as he looked back at her. Spike had never seemed so contented before. With much effort, he extended his neck to lean down and kiss her, and Faye's heart fluttered as though it was the first time.

Every time she closed her eyes she could see his face, smiling, burning, moaning from before; she saw that blazing lust that she had desired for so long finally directed at her. His eyes had been alive with an indescribable passion that had been even more overwhelming than her imagination could have conjured in that little kitchen on the _Bebop_; the way he had held her waist, pulled at her hair, looked her right in the face made Faye only want him more. She wanted nothing more than to give herself into him.

Lying there on the bed covers, resting her head casually on his chest as though it was a phenomenon that occurred every day, she bit back a smile. She was still in a state of glorious disbelief.

It was almost 3:30am when they left the hotel for the nearest twenty-four-hour bar. They strolled together, stepping in time with one another unintentionally, carelessly dressed and comfortable enough to leave their hair tousled and unkempt. As they gaited down a shaded side-street, headed for the orange city glow, Spike put his arm leisurely around Faye's shoulders and pressed his lips into her hair.

'You're beautiful,' he told her unblushingly.

Faye leaned into him with pleasure, her heart seemingly without a care in the world. All her previous confusion and scepticism seemed so futile at this moment; where would she be if she hadn't listened to her true desire? In her bed alone at the _Bebop_? She definitely knew what she preferred.

'How long have you thought that?' she asked, slightly cautiously.

'Too long,' said Spike wearily.

'Why didn't you ever say anything?'

Spike shrugged. 'I guess I wasn't sure, or I didn't admit it to myself. And it's _you_, I mean, look at you!'

'What about me?' she said, raising her eyebrows.

'You're such a _woman_, you know; always out on your own doing your own thing. I didn't want to mess that up for you.'

'Well, you've messed that up pretty well whether you wanted to or not,' Faye laughed dryly.

'Apologies.'

'You'll be eventually forgiven.'

'You can't accuse me anyway,' he said matter-of-factly after they crossed the empty street. 'Why didn't _you_ say anything?'

'I guess I was unsure as well,' Faye admitted. 'That's why I didn't visit you in hospital, I got a feeling I didn't like whenever I looked at you.'

'What was that feeling?'

'Something between fear and longing,' she shrugged.

'Are you happy now?'

Faye looked up at him, her head on his shoulder, and Spike's dark eyes were smouldering.

'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, I am very happy now.'

But Faye wasn't conveying everything on her mind. It seemed that with every step she took, more thoughts entered her mind until they swirled around, answerless, looking for some sort of obviously solution where there was none.

She didn't tell him that the reason she had been so hesitant was because of Julia… After all, the supposed love of Spike's life had been killed but three weeks ago, if that. Faye was afraid that if she brought it up or even mentioned Julia's name, Spike would remember and regret her, or become so consumed by sadness that he would push her away. Of course he would prefer Julia – who wouldn't? She was his other half, he had said so himself. So Faye couldn't help but wonder, as they strolled towards a main street, what Spike was thinking as he had his arm around her, or what was going through his mind when he had made love to her. Had he pretended she was Julia? The very idea made Faye feel sick and so she shoved it viciously out of her mind. _You can never just be happy, can you, Faye?_ she thought bitterly to herself.

But she couldn't help the nagging suspicions that dogged her sense of dwindling contentment. He had left her for Julia once before, even when he knew how much she needed him. She had confessed to Spike that she could never be happy without his presence in her life, desperately, imploringly, even held a gun to his head in an attempt to convey the importance of her honesty; but he had left anyway.

'This will do,' said Spike, as though from a long way off, gesturing a dingy tavern called _Boardwalk Inn_, or _Bo rdw lk In_ as some of the letters were missing their red luminescence.

He let go of Faye and stood back to let her enter first in an almost mockingly gentlemanly gesture. Faye raised her eyebrows slightly before sauntering past him and pushing open the door; as she passed, his hand smoothed over her backside once, but when she glanced over her shoulder his expression was as passive as ever. When her heart pounded at this simple sensual act, she surprised herself by resenting it.

All of these thoughts, these possibilities, hung like a cloud over her happiness. She couldn't be satisfied with Spike until she had some answers, and though this pub at almost-four in the morning was neither the right place nor the right time, she knew she couldn't hold back the tempest of inquiries that jumped to her lips every time she looked at him.

Grimly, she made her way towards the bar that was ominously similar to the one on Mars that she had so often retreated to, resolved on the conversation she was going to have to have.


	7. Chapter 7

Faye stared at the little menu without really seeing it, totally absorbed by her internal suffering. This was going to be much more complicated than either of them had intended all because of her idiotic obsession with reason. Why couldn't she let it go? She didn't know, but she _did_ know that these things couldn't be left alone otherwise she would never be able to sleep again.

'I know what you're thinking,' said Spike suavely, and Faye's gaze snapped up anxiously to observe a knowing look in his eye.

'What?' she said sharply.

'You're wondering where I got the money to pay for a meal,' he said, and Faye exhaled long and slow.

_Thank fuck for that_. She didn't want to imagine what he would think if he really knew what she was thinking… _But why should I be afraid of asking him?_ Suddenly, as though out of nowhere, a reckless feeling of injustice captured her and all reservation vanished on the spot.

'Actually, that's _not_ what I'm thinking,' she said firmly, putting the menu down.

'Hm?'

'That's not what I'm thinking,' she repeated clearly. 'Though I am thinking a lot of other things.'

'Like what?'

When she didn't answer, Spike looked up and when he noticed her expression, put his own menu down as well.

'What about Julia?' she asked boldly.

'What about her?' Spike replied, his brow knitting together, all frivolity gone.

'What do you mean, "what about her"? Three weeks ago she was the love of your goddamn life, that's what. I want an explanation.'

And Faye crossed her arms under her breasts, looking him hard in the eye. To her surprise, Spike smiled, though it was a humourless smile.

'I was waiting for you to ask,' he admitted quietly. 'The truth is, what Julia and I had was three years ago; I've come to realise that I was in love with a memory – with nostalgia, if you will – more than the actual woman herself. When we met again, we had both changed.'

'But you still preferred her,' said Faye stubbornly. 'Don't avoid the real evidence, Spike, you left me for her before.'

'That was more than her,' he replied, and his tone was quiet but firm. 'That was about Vicious –'

'Don't lie,' hissed Faye, though what he said was reasonable.

'You don't know what you're talking about. I have cared about you right from the beginning.'

'I'm sure you care about Jet and Ed as well but it's not like you're in _love_ with them!'

_OH shit_. Faye faltered, her mouth open in shock, and the word seemed to bounce between them like a screeching echo. _What the fuck is wrong with you?!_

Spike was looking at her with a totally shocked expression, all irritation lost from his brow. After a gruelling silence where that single word rung in their ears, Spike spoke.

'Are you saying that you're in lo–'

'That's not what I meant,' said Faye quickly, her eyes wide in horror.

Slowly, Spike's face became blank and soft, and he averted his gaze. Faye's insides were writhing, her cheeks burning. _Idiot!_

'That's not what I meant,' she repeated painfully.

'It's always been you, Faye,' said Spike suddenly, looking up again. There it was, that smouldering look in his eyes that seemed to hypnotise her – the only aspect of his physique that gave away any intense emotion. 'I'd been denying it all this time, but believe me. As soon as I met Julia again I was sure of it.'

'Don't say that if you don't mean it,' whispered Faye.

'I wouldn't,' he said, with a small smile.

'Oi, you two finished pickin' somethin'?'

The bartender had shuffled over and was looking down at them through the smoke of the cigarette hanging crookedly from his puffy lips.

'Just a bowl of chips,' said Spike, without looking up. 'And a scotch for me.'

'Whiskey on the rocks,' requested Faye, suddenly casual, glancing up at the man with her alluring eye.

'Can do,' he grumbled, and shuffled away again.

A silence descended upon the pair but neither of them felt uncomfortable enough to be inclined to fill it with mindless chatter. They both just sat there across from one another, lost in their own musings and ponderings, until Spike's long fingers reached unwaveringly across the table in a controlled, purposeful motion to clasp Faye's. The sudden warmth and closeness of his skin recalled memories from an hour before, and Faye looked down with a certain fondness at their entwined fingers. To her, they seemed to look so _right_ together; the shape of their respective knuckles and joints fit so perfectly, like a jigsaw or the most careful symmetry.

'I'm sorry for all the ambiguity, Faye,' Spike murmured, leaning back in his chair and stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.

'As long as you want to be with me, I don't mind,' she smiled, but it was a slightly sad smile that did not go amiss to Spike.

He knew she felt inadequate; he knew she thought he was lying. He could see the reservation creeping back behind her eyes as she gazed unseeingly at their conjoined hands. Faye saw how close they were, and yet she felt that Spike was a whole dimension away. There he was, sitting only two feet across from her, and she felt his physical being in hers, but she knew that if Julia had have been the same as always it would be Julia sitting here across from him in a dingy bar on a Friday night, listening to the weaving soft jazz crackling through the speakers – not her. She knew that Spike would prefer it that way.

But then a number came on, a song that she knew well. _Waltz for Zizi, what a familiar tune_. Faye listened to its hopeful and yet somehow lamentable tune drift unnoticed through the pub; no one seemed to care, none of the _Boardwalk Inn_'s five occupants looked up from their depressed empty glasses. Inside, Faye's heart was calmed and she ceased to think about her failure as a human being in relation to Julia.

Spike had said it himself: Julia had changed and so had he. They were different people now and he had chosen his relief. Or a fallback? _No_, she told herself firmly. _I am not a fallback, I know that for sure_. And she did know it, and Spike knew it, and that was all that mattered.

Subconsciously, she squeezed his fingers tighter.

The bartender came and dropped down their drinks and a sad looking bowl of weepy hot chips. Faye looked up at Spike, smiling slightly at her renewed confidence, and took a chip to bite between her teeth. She hadn't realised how hungry she was.

And then the bar door opened. The bell tinkled and Spike's eyes narrowed slightly; he was watching the entrance, preoccupied by the newcomers. The shift in his expression told Faye all she needed to know.

Immediately, she dived under her seat and pivoted around the little table as Spike threw himself behind the bar counter. The glass bottles behind the bar shattered like diamond dust when machine gun fire jutted through the pub, drilling plug-holes in the wooden surfaces of the bar and the tables surrounding. Faye dug frantically in her pocket for her Glock, loaded it and fired around the side of the stool, aiming for the legs of the four men who had entered. One fell with a cry of pain into the taps from Spike's trigger; another was hurled back into the window by Faye's bullets fired up from his ankles to his hips.

Her mind was spinning. She felt a reckless disregard for self-preservation and leaned dangerously around to fire at the main man who stood boldly, suited, in front of the door. His suit was significantly white.

'White Tiger!' shouted Spike furiously, as the machine gun of the suited man popped to an end.

Spike knelt up and shot him right in the forehead as Faye blasted the final man into the jukebox. A smoky silence resonated between the many shards of glass that now littered the dingy pub, but it did not last long. Spike had leapt to his feet and scrambled over an overturned table to reach the white suited man.

'Shit, he's dead!' groaned Spike. 'I wanna know why members of the White Tiger are looking for us.'

'More men to kill, great,' Faye muttered mutinously. 'And such perfect timing, too.'

She sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time. _Can't we at least have an uninterrupted conversation!? I'm never going to get to sleep…_


	8. Chapter 8

Husky breathing suddenly erupted by the window and Faye's eyes snapped up to see the man she had shot in the legs struggling with himself, contorted over the broken windowpane, clutching at his bleeding thighs.

In an instant, Spike was next to him.

'What does White Tiger have to do with the dregs of Red Dragon?' he demanded clearly.

'Wh-who – d'you think em-em-_ARGH!_-employed those – _dogs_?' the man spat. 'Red – Dragon is o-over. White _Tiger_ ru-run that _shit_ now.'

Faye strode over and pointed her gun at the man's head.

'So your syndicate has stolen the remnants of Red Dragon,' she said coolly, narrowing her eyes. 'You came after us because we killed those nobodies, huh? Some syndicate…'

'Shut your m-mouth, you _bitch_!' growled the man.

_BANG!_ His head was cocked aside as half of his skull was blown onto the wall. Spike's expression was deadly.

'What a scumbag,' he muttered, before standing up. 'C'mon, Faye, I don't want to get involved in this.'

She stood up, too, her shoes tinkling as they disturbed the shards of glass. The pub was a mess and everyone was dead except for them; the bartender was slumped over the bench, his blood dripping to pool in the sag of a barstool.

Faye side-stepped a body to walk over to where they had been sitting, down the rest of her drink, and return to slip her fingers into Spike's. Together, they left the bar for the hotel, both with their other hands holding their guns in their coat pockets; but all was quiet.

Spike wearily fumbled in his trousers for the hotel keys, unlocked the door and led Faye inside. She hadn't noticed how tired she was but now that bed was so close, her eyes drooped. _How convenient_.

Spike lingered by the small linoleum bench to pour himself a glass of scotch while Faye fell back onto the bed, kicking her shoes off as she went. She pressed her face into the pillow that still smelled of him. The room hadn't changed at all since their glorious hour earlier that night; it was as though they had never left. She felt exhausted and sad, and strangely lonely. She hated the memories of Whitney that infiltrated her mind, filling her with a toxic feeling of desolation. _Remember what happened last time? _

But suddenly, she felt warm hands upon her chest and she opened her eyes to see Spike's face only a few inches from hers. He was untying her red shirt, slowly undressing her for impending slumber. His expression was smooth and soft, as warm as his touch and it was then for the first time that Faye believed that he cared for her. Only when he unzipped her yellow shirt and pushed the top aside, exposing her breasts, did their gaze meet.

'Don't be sad,' he murmured, inclining his head to kiss her softly at the corner of her mouth. 'I wouldn't dare hurt you.'

And he smiled slightly before proceeding to undo the button of her hot pants and pull them down over her legs. There was nothing sexual in his movements, nothing suggestive or overbearing; he kissed her again, this time on the lips, deeply and lovingly, before standing, taking his glass and going outside.

Spike closed the door behind him and sat down on the top step, taking out a cigarette as he did so. He felt very strange. It was as though he was a different person yet still using this old body. If he had have found out that White Tiger had taken over what had remained of the Red Dragon syndicate a week ago, he would have been inclined – even obligated – to find every member associated and murder them. He may even have left the _Bebop_ to inform old comrades of the situation for not only was it an act of thievery but it was an impact upon his pride, being a former Red Dragon member himself. And White Tiger, being a rival syndicate in the past, had committed the scoundrel act of minor thugs. It was shameful. And yet Spike found, as he sat there smoking and looking out at the perpetual lights of Shuto City, that he didn't care. He felt no personal attachment to anything in his past anymore and it seemed that all that was important to him now was lying asleep inside of this back-street hotel room. He imagined her legs, wrapped lazily around those crinkled beige sheets; her skin would be washed in warm orange lamplight, every contour would be soft and supple; and her mind would be at peace, wandering in the space between dreams.

He had thought about this moment for a very long time but never had he truly expected it to come true. For so long he had focussed all his attention upon Julia and finding her again when what Julia _represented_, or what he really wanted, had been standing right in front of him, walking around him, sleeping in the room down the hall from him, all along. _Idiot, Spike_, he thought, shaking his head and butting his cigarette.

When he went back inside, he shut the door and the room seemed impossibly quiet. The only sound was that of Faye's breathing, deep and rhythmic, and Spike stood by the doorway for a moment watching her bare chest rising and falling, rising and falling in time with the beat of her slumber. Then he put his empty glass in the sink, undressed and slid into the bed beside her, wrapping his arm lightly around her waist and pressing his lips against her bare shoulder. Her skin was so warm and full of life. Step by step, little by little, with every breath Spike fell a inch deeper into love with Faye; his only fear was that she would get cold feet and run away. But he didn't think about that just now. For the moment, he let himself love her and be content.


	9. Chapter 9

When Spike woke the next morning, he was alone. He opened his eyes blearily to an empty bed, blinked once, then closed his eyes again.

'Fucking hell,' he muttered.

_So much for true love, who was I kidding? _He couldn't help but laugh painfully into the pillow before rolling over and looking at the empty room.

The sun was up and the bright white beams that streamed through the curtains pierced his tired eyes and gave blooming life to a hangover. His clothes still lay scattered over the floor, all a mess of navy and yellow. Her garments were poignantly missing. Spike couldn't feel sad or lonely. He kind of had a strange feeling of resignation, as though his subconscious had expected this all along and only his desperate flying will had snuffed out reason for an evening.

With a sigh, he sat up, swung his legs around and got to his feet, interlocking his fingers and pushing up palms up towards the ceiling. The extension of his spine spurred an odd energy into his being. _Well, I guess there's only one thing for it_.

Making his mind up on the spot, Spike dressed quickly and left the hotel, walking down the stone steps with his hands in his pockets. He was going to go back to the _Bebop_ straight away and tell Jet what White Tiger had done, then go to kill them and thus satisfy his soul whilst simultaneously distracting his mind from the strange ripping sensation he was experiencing somewhere inside his ribcage.

He stopped at the foot of the steps, frowning slightly at a smear of dried blood embedded into the concrete. When he stood up to continue walking, it was a more wary and suspicious eye that surveyed the surrounding carpark and dormitories. He wordlessly dropped the room key on the counter.

'A hundred woolongs,' grunted the old lady, whose wrinkles gave the impression that her face was melting.

Spike dug into his pocket for his wallet and found – only a hundred woolongs in there. He smirked slightly at his own misfortune as he handed the hateful woman the money and sauntered off. _Typical_.

As he crossed the street, heading for the bay, a car pulled up by the curb. Only when Spike had rounded the corner did two men in longcoats get out and begin to stroll silently down the street and around the corner. Their hands were in their pockets.

The laneway was empty. Briny sea air mingled with a smell of off cabbage and piss permeated the alley but Spike didn't care. His mind was occupied as he watched his shoes walking over the cobbled stones.

_Click_.

He whirled around, whipping out the two guns from his pockets, to fire indiscriminately at the two men behind him, both of whom dived aside out of the line of fire. One slumped against the wall, bleeding from three holes in his chest. The other crouched behind a dumpster, clutching a wounded shoulder.

'You don't wanna kill me,' he said, in a husky, emphysemic voice.

'I'm pretty sure I do,' Spike replied evenly.

'Don't you wanna know where your bird is?'

Spike faltered. _The blood on the pavement_. He took a running leap atop the dumpster and fired the gun out of the man's hand before he could even raise it, stepping down in front of him and whacking him across the face with the butt of the Jericho.

'Where – the – _fuck _– is – she?'

Spike grabbed the man by the neck of his shirt, clenching his teeth and trying to ignore the intense ringing noise that was filling his ears. The man's lips were bleeding and he spluttered slightly.

'_Tell me!_' demanded Spike, gripping him tighter.

'In the middle of the White Tiger HQ, that's where!' spat the man, grinning bloodily. 'Let me go and I'll show you where.'

'That's fucking likely.' Spike threw him back against the wall and stood up straight, looming over the scum and raising the gun to his head. 'I know where their headquarters are. But I'll leave Carlos a message if he comes looking for you: I'm running out of patience.'

_BANG_. The man slumped sideways into a bloody heap on the ground.

Spike revved the _Swordfish II_, pumping the gas before shooting out across the bay and into the air.

'Jet,' he said into the telecommunicator. 'I need you to get the _Hammer Head_ and come out to Mars. Bring ammunition.'

'Can it wait? I'm busy.'

'Quit watering your fucking bonsais, this is important.'

'Alright, alright. Over.'

Spike sped the _Swordfish II_ up through the atmosphere and into open space. He was so full of rage that it made him sick. He knew it was a trap, that they would expect him to go to rescue Faye and jump him, but he didn't care. He didn't even care that she had left; in fact, that meant nothing. She didn't leave because she didn't want him, she left because she was afraid. He recalled that look of fleeting vulnerability in her eye that shattered her smoothly crafted façade of imperviousness, and sped the ship even faster.

'Why Mars?' came Jet's static voice through the telecommunicator.

'White Tiger are behind those Red Dragon traffickers and they kidnapped Faye.'

'Hm. That's an achievement.'

'Yeah, but it was my fault so we should probably go and get her.'

Spike was trying to sound indifferent, or even slightly exasperated at his task. He couldn't let the fear and rage show in his voice.

'I'm intercepting you,' said Jet, and Spike looked down at the radar to see their ships gain close proximity. 'I brought my Walther and a couple explosives, have you got missiles?'

'Four.'

'Good. Ed, do you read me? Ed?'

'Ed here, Jet!' came Ed's high-pitched voice.

'Can you find coordinates for White Tiger HQ on Mars and let us know if any malicious vessels might be patrolling any terraformed cities?'

'Yep yep!'

The sound of her plinking keys could be heard through the static.

'White Tiger HQ at 484 by 67.2,' she announced brightly. 'Ed's seeing not a plane around except cargo! Goooood luck!'

'Thanks, Ed.'

Spike's eyes were narrowed slightly as they entered Mars' atmosphere and flew low over the surface of the planet towards the appropriate city. He lit a cigarette as the two ships dipped into the artificial atmosphere and over the replenishing barriers. He felt like he had never been more ready to go on the offensive, to load his gun and eliminate any obstacle blocking contentment or satisfaction in his life. For once, he didn't give a damn about the money. This wasn't just about principle, this was about Faye. He had only just gotten her for himself and he definitely wasn't ready to lose her.

'Welcome to Mars,' said a cool, female voice through the telecommunicator.

Spike keyed in Ed's coordinates and found a static blueprint of the CBD, centred on a skyscraper just like Red Dragon's. Figures.

The _Swordfish II _and Jet's _Hammer Head_ flew through the airstrips, joining a trail of ships heading to the CBD, before weaving between buildings and skyscrapers to come to land at a strip by Mizumi Lake.

Spike loaded his Jericho 941, strapped two more handguns to his torso beside six explosives, and opened the side-door to flick out his cigarette butt. He was walking a knife-edge between all and nothing; but to Spike, leaving with nothing wasn't an option.


	10. Chapter 10

Sorry it's taken me so long to upload the final chapter, I've been overseas for a month. But here you go, the final chapter to my fic; enjoy!

* * *

Carlos' face swam in and out of Spike's mind's eye, wearing a leering, taunting grin, a glint in his eyes challenging Spike's resolve. A thrill of hatred ran up his spine as the cool glass doors slid open and his heels clicked over the stone floor of the atrium.

'Are you sure she's here?' Jet asked, raising his eyebrows slightly at the crystal chandelier that hung glittering over a marble fountain that was situated in the middle of the room. 'I mean, holding her in their headquarters is a little obvious, don't you think?'

'It's supposed to be,' Spike replied shortly.

Jet didn't need an explanation. He merely watched the businessmen and women, clad in their crisp suits and carrying briefcases and mingling around the fountain and atrium front desks with mild contempt. Telephone rings echoed off the tiled surfaces. The water babbled against its stone enclosure but Spike's eyes did not shift from the lift doors as he made his way across the floor, hands buried in his pockets.

'We'll leave none alive,' he said, as soon as the lift doors had closed and they were rising slowly up towards the top of the building. 'I'm fucking sick of Carlos.'

'You left Red Dragon years ago,' Jet noted, unable to keep the scepticism from his tone.

'Don't even,' Spike suggested, but there was no threat in it. 'It's just what I have to do.'

Jet shrugged and let it go.

'It'll be better without them anyway,' he said carelessly. 'No one wants the syndicate getting any bigger. Bob called and said they'd had more trouble on Ganymede with some kids who called themselves gangsters.' He shook his head in dismay. 'I don't know what this solar system has come to.'

'_Level 30_,' a cool female voice told them from the lift speakers, and they were out as soon as the steel doors had opened.

The entire right wall was made of glass, revealing the sprawling urban metropolis skittering along the roads and lake below. Spike cast it one disinterested eye before focussing upon the more pressing issue at hand: the white-tiled corridor was deserted, as he had expected, and he and Jet strode down and around the corner to see a woman clothed in white sitting behind a secretary's desk. Her eyes were upon them immediately and something in her face betrayed that she was not surprised to see them.

'Can I help you?' she inquired formally, putting down a file of papers she had been pretending to peruse while she awaited their arrival.

'Just open the door,' said Spike wearily, gesturing to the stainless steel door behind which he knew White Tiger's headquarters lay. 'We both know Carlos is expecting visitors.'

'I'm sorry but I cannot allow you entry,' said the woman firmly. 'I have no inclination to believe –'

But her words were dissolved in a gasp as Spike pointed his Jericho at her.

'I don't know if you're playing dumb or actually clueless,' he said impatiently, 'but you ought to get out of here if you're not going to open the door.'

'_Level 30_.'

The cool female voice from the lift drifted down the corridor and Spike and Jet both whipped around to face the corner. Jet's Walther was at the ready.

'Get out of here,' Spike repeated urgently to the woman, not relinquishing his gaze from the corner.

Rapid footsteps echoed on the tiles. Jet moved to press his back against the wall. Two men burst around the corner into plain view. _Duck, punch, uppercut, weave, _Spike was dancing a murder-waltz with the man on the right, the pair of them moving and gliding over the floor in response to the other's actions. _Move, like water, use your opponent's energy against them. Punch back aaand WHACK!_ The man was thrown back as Spike's hand absorbed the energy from his hit and shoved back with a precise and slicing cut.

'Whooaaa!' _SMASH_.

The entire pane of glass, three square metres of it, shattered as the man was thrown back into it, and soon his wail had dissolved into the general city hubbub that was drifting up from thirty storeys below. Spike couldn't keep the smirk off his face as he turned around to see Jet standing characteristically over his opponent, who was crouched on the floor, groaning and clutching his middle. The secretary had watched with a look of horror upon her face. Her eyes flicked between Spike and Jet as she got to her feet and moved around them to disappear down the corner in a terrified sprint towards the lift.

'Idiots,' Jet said in an almost disappointed voice, shaking his head. 'What are White Tiger playing at eh? Sending dunderheads like this to hold us up?'

'Let's just pretend it's a ruse to lull us into a false sense of security,' said Spike, still grinning. 'Move back,' he said, 'Let's blow open this door.'

As you needed to key in a password and employ fingerprint identification to enter, Spike and Jet mutually understood that the only way in was by using bombs.

'Three, two, one,' muttered Spike from where they crouched around the corner, and he lobbed a grenade around at their overbearing metal barricade.

A wall-shuddering _boom_ pounded through the building but Spike and Jet didn't wait for a response. They immediately lunged around the corner and through the haze of plaster dust, stepping between the two fragmented steel doors, and into the open room that was White Tiger's HQ. Their entrance was met by immediate gunfire. Spike threw himself behind a large hunk of door and leaned around to fire back at the four figures who stood in the middle of the tiled room. Jet cut to the chase and tossed a bomb over his shoulder which exploded with another resounding _boom_ and snuffed the sound of gunshots.

When they looked over into the room, all was dust, debris and blood. Spike knew there weren't many gangsters left in the building – these cronies were all small-time newbies, probably instructed to attack them as a distraction or perhaps stationed purely to amuse Carlos. Spike just wanted to get in, get Faye, kill Carlos and get out.

'What did Ed say again?' Jet asked quickly as the sound of movement echoed through the dust from the depths of the building.

'Upstairs, third door on the – _ARGH!_'

A bullet pinged off the steel door fragment beside Spike yet he didn't pause as Jet fired back. Shouts from behind told him more had come from the lift. As the dust settled, the stairwell was revealed to be a few metres ahead to the left of the room. The right was all doors and office quarters. Spike ran for the staircase and dived over the railing to fire from between the spokes, downing a man by the ruined doorway they had entered from, but Spike didn't hesitate. Carlos and Faye were upstairs and Jet could handle this distraction himself.

Spike hurried up the stairs and threw himself aside as a bearded face, and pistol, appeared over the banister above. Bullets pinged off the marble steps and Spike fired round after round until they stopped. A silver bullet grazed his shoulder and he dived down again under the first steps, firing his gun haphazardly. He could feel that Faye was close. He could almost taste the heat radiating from her skin and a desperate need overwhelmed him where he crouched. The door was right there, right there just ahead of the stairs. Some idiot was still shooting at him. Spike stood and fired a single shot into the face of the man who barely had time to realise what was happening.

His legs burning, a searing pain throbbing in his wounded shoulder, Spike threw himself over the banisters and dived at the silver door behind which he knew the jewel of his destiny was situated alongside the obstacle of his own progress as a human being. His shoulder collided, the door banged open against the wall and Spike's gun was raised, his finger tingling on the trigger. His jaw dropped.

Faye was sitting with her legs crossed on a chintz armchair in the middle of the room, smoking a leisurely cigarette amid an array of six bodies that lay scattered randomly over the tiled floor. She looked up in mild surprise at Spike's dramatic entrance and their eyes connected in a moment of silent unexpected reunion. Then, she smiled and butted her cigarette.

'You made it,' she noted, the smile evident in her voice.

Spike exhaled long and slow, letting his gun-hand drop limply at his side. His eyes roved over the six men on the floor. All were lying contorted in little pools of their own congealed blood. He didn't understand.

'Carlos –'

'Is dead,' Faye finished for him, gesturing at where the man lay face down, unremarkable from the other men. 'Sorry if you wanted to do the honours but I didn't really have a choice. Cigarette?'

She offered her pack. Spike walked forwards and took one mutely, lighting up and taking a very, _very_ deep drag. He frowned. One thought seemed to penetrate through his haze of complete and utter confusion.

'It's not like the door was locked,' he pointed out, a slight edge to his voice. 'Why didn't you just leave? The guards they had stationed down there were pathetic. Disappointing, even.'

'Oh, I was testing you,' Faye said lightly, getting to her feet and brushing down flecks of ash from her hot pants. 'You know, just making sure you weren't gonna get cold feet on me or anything.'

She flashed him her alluring, slightly triumphant eye and he stared back, shocked beyond words.

'You thought _I_ was gonna get cold feet?' He managed to splutter. 'But – I thought –'

'I thought you knew me better.' An eyebrow was raised and yet the smirk that lingered on her lips told him she was satisfied.

He was too shocked to be angry. In fact, he was even a little impressed though he wasn't about to admit it.

'So, you killed two birds with one stone,' Faye summarised, unable to suppress the wide smile that glittered the corners of her eyes as she moved over to press her hand against his hot, sticky neck. 'White Tiger's finished and I might even trust you a little now.'

Spike shook his head in disbelief before smirking crookedly himself.

'I am in awe of you, Faye Valentine,' he told her, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her into him, the butt of his Jericho pressed cold against her hip. 'Complete and utter awe.'

Her smile pressed a familiar kiss to his lips and all the pain and confusion and doubt was wiped clean from Spike's mind. He couldn't feel his shoulder anymore. In fact, he couldn't feel anything but the shape of Faye's body in his arms.


End file.
